Two

Two / Abigail Koren

I grew up in a land of two nations. A land with two flags, two languages and debatable borders. Some call it Palestine and others call it Israel. I called it Home.

I moved to Maine after several years living in Hawaii where I met my former partner, a Mainer, who introduced me to his home state. I fell in love with Portland for all of the reasons one falls in love with Portland, but one thing that particularly stood out to me was the city’s large Arabic-speaking population. Discovering the Middle-Eastern face of northern New England was somewhat surprising and more than anything — a source of comfort to me as a newcomer.

Upon meeting members of the community, I enjoyed whipping out my go-to Arabic phrases: “Hi, I am Abigail from Jerusalem / God bless you / I have a big dog”. But these short interactions affirmed my belief that the mandatory two years of Arabic I was taught in junior high were far from enough to carry a proper conversation in the language. I was excited to learn that SMCC offered an Arabic Language course and I immediately signed up.

The majority of the students in the class were fluent in Arabic. However, many of them could not read or write in their own mother tongue because the opportunity to learn how to was not available in the countries that they had fled from. Let that sink in.

On the first day of class, each student was handed a blank map of the Middle East. Our teacher, a kind and wise doctor from Iraq, asked us to fill in the country names. When we reached the part of the map where I spent 15 years of my life, I quietly observed the mixed responses in the room. The woman sitting next to me suddenly exclaimed “we do not believe that Israel is a country” and the teacher nodded in agreement . The verdict was clear — Israel, in that moment, simply did not exist. I sat there with a familiar yet unrefined emotion in my body. I now know to identify it as the surfacing of deeply repressed trauma.

I left class that evening feeling lonely, afraid and confused. Where did half of my life take place? Where did my story happen? Only later that week did I ask myself: what about my classmate’s story? What about my teacher’s story? Had I ever truly heard the other narratives that I, as a free-thinking person, claim to honor? Did they hear mine? Did the environments that we grew up in offer the resources for us to adequately do so?

“A Language is a Culture” was the name of the Arabic text book that we briefly studied in my Israeli middle-school and I believe this name to be true; a language tells the story of those who speak it and what is so interesting to me about Arabic and Hebrew is the obvious similarity between them. I find it absurd that as Israelis, we are all drafted to the military when we are 18 years old but until that point are barely given the tools to have a day-to-day conversation with our Palestinian neighbors.

I am not a “political person”, per se. I realize that many people feel that it’s a privilege to refrain from political discourse and while I fully understand this perspective, I would like to offer an additional one — what if it is a privilege to be unfamiliar with the realities that rob people of their faith in one another and in the systems that claim to protect them? Systems that time and time again produce “leaders” that choose war in the name of “power” and seem to worship land and money more than the sanctity of human life? This is the reality for many people in Palestine, Israel and other places of conflict around the globe.

I believe that there are many effective ways to bring forth sustainable change that is rooted in genuine respect for all living beings. The political realm is one, education is another and the two often intertwine. What are some other areas where we can enhance the discussion around the changes required to make the world a better place? I sense that now more than ever, humanity is being called to explore this question. Portland, with its unique set of circumstances, is a fertile ground for meaningful dialogue and our willingness to engage has the potential to inspire many other Americans to heed the call.

Often, understanding a language is less about speaking and more about listening. Expanding the capacity to hear the voice of the other and the voice within is a practice that requires firm presence and also — flexibility. To me, studying Arabic and Hebrew is an ongoing invitation to celebrate what the two languages share along with the intricate beauty of the differences between them. On this humbling journey, my hope is that we as a society learn to lovingly redefine the true meaning of words like Empathy, Compassion and Grace so that we can become more fluent in the all-too-often forgotten language of Peace, together, as One.